Bounce Rate

Definition

Bounce rate is the share of sessions where someone arrives on a page and leaves without interacting further — no second pageview, no meaningful engagement. A high bounce rate on a landing page usually signals that the page failed to match the visitor's expectation or give them a reason to stay.

In depth

Bounce rate measures how often a single-page visit ends right where it started. The exact definition depends on the analytics tool: in Google Analytics 4, a session is counted as 'engaged' if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, fires a conversion event, or has multiple pageviews, and bounce rate is essentially the inverse of that engagement. A bounce isn't always bad — someone who got your phone number and called may have technically bounced — but on most landing pages it points to friction.

It matters because bounce rate is an early warning that traffic and message aren't lining up. If you're paying for clicks and most of them leave in a few seconds, you're burning budget. Watching bounce rate by traffic source and by ad helps you spot a mismatch between what an ad promises and what the page delivers.

WellBuilt treats bounce rate as a clue, not a verdict. A high number tells you to go look — slow load time, a headline that doesn't match the ad, an intrusive popup, a page that's hard to read on mobile. We pair it with heatmaps and session recordings to see what people actually did before they left, instead of guessing at the cause.

The formula

Worked example

Related terms